An Evaluation of Evidence for the Age of the Universe

Introduction

A group of Christians professionally trained in astronomical research has
reviewed presentations by Drs. Danny Faulkner and Hugh Ross, covering
arguments on the age of the universe. We appreciated the civility and
respect of the discourse on a topic often generating more heat than light
within the Christian community. Our analysis concentrates on arguments made
by the speakers dealing with astronomical data and calculations, rather than
about Biblical interpretation or biological evolution, because the former
are our areas of professional expertise. We do note that, for example, one's
view of Scriptural interpretation and theology will affect the range of
models one would consider.

Aim

Our aim has been to assess the evidence for the age of the universe in
the light of the arguments presented, using a standard scientific approach.
Science seeks to make progress in understanding the physical world through
inductive reasoning, rather than the watertight proofs found in mathematics.
This means that scientific understanding advances through an enormous amount
of focused, incremental efforts with many consistency checks in the context
of a mutually accountable scientific community. Drawing sound conclusions
about a general question such as the age of the universe cannot be done on
the basis of one argument alone but requires many different independent
experiments including tests that could falsify competing claims. Any
conclusions, along with an evaluation of their certainty, are then made on
the basis of the overall weight of the available evidence. There will often
be some data that appear to disagree with the rest of the evidence; this
does not automatically provide evidence for alternative hypotheses but often
means that our theoretical understanding is not yet entirely complete.

Analysis

Ross's arguments provide solid evidence that the universe is billions of
years old. He presents several independent arguments, based on a wide range
of data, indicating that the universe and most objects in it are much older
than ten thousand years. The light-travel-time argument is particularly
strong in both its basis in physical principles and its simplicity. Faulkner
does not present evidence for a universe thousands of years old but rather
makes claims for isolated inconsistencies in the case for great age. While
it is common scientific practice to look for holes in well-established
theories, the new contrary evidence must either be very strong to counter
the existing evidence for the theory or else be supported by a new theory
that readily explains both the new evidence and the old. We judge that the
"inconsistencies" pointed out by Faulkner do not meet either of these
criteria. In some instances the observations are completely consistent with
our current understanding of these physical systems in the context of an old
universe; in others, while universally accepted interpretations don't exist
today and our knowledge is often still incomplete, such explanations are
likely to be forthcoming as observations and theory progress. It is our
professional judgment that the weight of the evidence overwhelmingly
supports a universe that is billions of years old.